The Powered Universe: Chapter 2
Leto feels the air behind her arm surge forwards as she tries to hit Malcolm just below his sternum. His hand grabs her curled fist and holds her arm still as he moves his knee closer to her now exposed stomach. A sudden wall of air shoves its way into his body. He falls onto his back, Leto’s fist still securely in his grip.
She jerks forwards, and grunts as the twin soles of thick leather boots make contact with her ribs. Not hard enough to break anything, but she’s definitely going to be bruised tomorrow. The boots dig into her as Malcolm pulls her into them using her arm, and she’s lifted off her feet and flung forwards and over her prone Mentor.
She uses some strong wind to keep her from falling, and to help her flip around in time to dodge the hand zipping towards her face. She catches the elbow that tries to hit her. Wind sweeps Malcolm’s feet from under him, and she shoves him to the ground. One leg over his shins, the other on his chest, and both of his hands pinned in hers, Leto grins in victory.
“I think I win this one.” She says, and Malcolm’s face gains a horrifyingly familiar grin.
“Do you?”
He swings a leg out from under Leto and raises it up. Stumbling slightly at the sudden change in balance, he curls his leg around hers and pulls it until she falls forwards. Rolling behind Leto and onto his feet, Malcolm grabs one arm and kicks her to the ground. Using her free arm, Leto pushes her and Malcolm into the air.
She twists her arm out of his grip, and watches as he falls down again. This time, though, she pushes air up under her feet to keep her airborne.
Malcolm looks up at her, his brows downturned slightly as he chews on his lip. Then, he nods and starts clapping.
“Good work.” He says. “Now, how do you go down without falling?”
Leto looks down. At ten feet, as long as she distributes her weight nothing should be broken. But without falling?
She takes a step forwards, and the air pushes against her foot as it ‘lands’. She takes a step down, and the same thing happens. And another. And another.
Her feet hit real ground. Malcolm gives her a congratulatory pat on the back. “Take a shower. I’ll meet you outside.”
With that, he walks out of the training room, leaving Leto alone, panting as exhaustion starts to reach into her joints.
She leaves her hair down after getting all the excess moisture out with the facility towels. It’s a lighter brown than her Mom’s, so are her eyes. Her long, pointed nose is the only part of her Mom that she got.
The sensation of fingers running through her hair startles Leto, but turning around she sees nobody else in the changing room. She shivers, turning back to face the mirror, and dry hair hits the back of her neck.
Oh.
She whispers a small thank you, and smiles a little as a curl of warm air brushes against her face. She finishes putting everything back into her bag, and swings it over her shoulder as she finally leaves for the day.
Malcolm is waiting outside for her, leaning against the wall by the door with a cigarette between his fingers. He glances at her, and hums something. He lets go of his cigarette as it lights up a blinding white, and disappears into ash.
“What are you doing?” Leto asks him. He’s never waited before.
“I heard you graduated last week.”
Leto has to take a moment to fully process his words. “Yeah, I did.” She pulls her bag strap so that her bag is behind her instead of at her side. “Why?”
He stands up straight. “You turned eighteen this spring. Your contract with AHA states that starting at the start of next month you need to spend the next two years dedicated to Hero work. No job, no college.”
Leto’s heart skips a beat. “Am I compensated for any of that?”
“After your first year, when you get your tier assignment. Or if they let you get an office job, which they’ll only do if you end up being hopelessly incompetent.”
Leto grabs onto her bag strap to hide how much her hands are shaking. Her Mom didn’t let her work until this point because she wanted Leto to focus on school as much as possible between Hit training. She was going to get a job this summer. Was. She can’t.
Because of a contract her Mom signed when Leto was not even ten years old. A contract that she’s never seen. A contract that has defined her life for nine years. And will continue to for the next two, at least.
“Walk.” Malcolm’s harsh voice breaks through Leto’s catastrophizing. He’s a few steps ahead of her already, and she quickly falls in stride beside him.
Leto looks straight ahead. “Why didn’t you say this sooner?”
She can feel Malcolm’s eyes burning through her skull. “Why didn’t you?”
“What teenager in high school doing essentially four hours of extracurricular every day is going to think to go look at some piece of paper signed almost a decade ago?”
“A responsible one.”
Leto feels an incredulous laugh leave her mouth. “I don’t know what kind of childhood you had, but most high schoolers don’t have to worry about contracts and legal or financial repercussions of them. Not to mention, until now, I’ve only been told that I have a required number of hours per week training.”
At the mention of childhood, Malcolm’s steps halter for just a moment. He glances at Leto with an expression she’s never seen on his face. She thinks maybe he’s going to say something, but he just looks forward again and resumes his pace.
She walks beside him in silence for the next several minutes, taking the occasional turn into a part of the city she’d never explored before.
It’s…unremarkable. It’s not grungy or disheveled, nor neurotically clean and precise. There’s a clear amount of care put into keeping the buildings up, but not enough to power wash them every month, or even every year. Some of the apartment windows have taped up decorations, some are covered by curtains or blinds, some are just left empty. The business signs are clean, but not sterilized. Many seem to be small, hole-in-the-wall shops and restaurants, and there’s a few people wandering around inside the open ones.
“Where are we going?” Leto asks as she realizes that she’s been following Malcolm almost blindly.
“A friend’s. We’re almost there.”
“Why?”
“They’ll be able to help you.”
“Can I talk to my Mom first?”
Malcolm falters for a second time. That look from earlier shows up again too, and Leto raises an eyebrow at him. She stops walking and crosses her arms, trying to look confident. “What, didn’t expect that I’d want to talk about this to someone?”
He shakes his head. “No, no, not that. Just,” He looks off into space for a moment, “just forgot. You can call her now, but we- I can only meet them tonight. You can-” He groans as he rubs a hand over his face. “It’s complicated. For me. Call your mom, if you want, but we need to meet them tonight.”
Leto can’t help the curiosity that comes over her at Malcolm’s stumbling and stuttering. In the almost two years that he’s been Mentoring her, not once has he ever lost his composure. Not a single slip up in the cool, detached demeanor that he held up, and now it’s started to crumble.
She gets her phone out of her bag, and calls her Mom. She watches Malcolm as it rings, and rings, and rings, and rings. His face settles back into its typical impassivity.
The person you have called is not available.
“Hey Ma, I’m probably going to be late tonight. Malcolm is taking me somewhere. I’ll send you the address when I get there. Love you.” She puts her phone in her jean pocket, and looks at Malcolm. “Okay, take me to this super important person that you can only see tonight.”
He doesn’t even deign her with a response before continuing his previous pace down the sidewalk. It’s easy to catch up with the sudden distance, since her stride is longer than his, but it’s harder to cross the now uncomfortable silence between them.
The more she thinks about it, the more off her Mentor has been this whole impromptu journey. He seemed normal when they had sparred not even an hour earlier, so what changed? Did he learn about her contract stipulations while she was cleaning up? Or did this elusive friend of his let him know they were available? Maybe some third, even more secret thing she can’t even dream of happened.
Malcolm stops in front of an apartment complex. Leto watches as he stares at the call buttons mounted next to the front door, and tries to search his face for any change in expression, something to let her know what he’s thinking. Not a single muscle twitch as he raises a finger and presses one of the buttons.
“Who is it?” The speaker crackles as someone’s voice filters through.
“It’s me.” Malcolm answers, and there’s a moment of silence as the person on the other side seems to think about it.
“The speakers are shit. Me who?”
He groans in frustration, the most emotion he’s outwardly expressed outside of when she lands a particularly good hit. “Malcolm.”
There’s no response from the person on the other side. The front door’s lock clicks, and Malcolm opens it and gestures for her to go first. The door clicks shut behind them, and Leto follows Malcolm up the stairs one slow step at a time.
One floor.
Two floors.
Three floors.
Not a single word is said between them as they step onto the fourth floor and start walking down the hallway. It’s tense, at least on Leto’s end. She doesn’t know what Malcolm is thinking, or feeling, or if he’s even doing any of those things at all.
He stops in front of door 418. Leto stops behind him, and watches as he hesitantly puts his arm up and raps on the door once.
Silence. He goes to knock a second time, but the sound of heavy footfalls stops him. The sound of a chain rattling, and a deadbolt sliding back is followed by the violent opening of the wooden door, revealing a person who immediately slams the door shut when she sees Malcolm’s face.
Leto almost jumps out of her skin at the sudden sound. Malcolm knocks on the door again, this time hitting it more than once.
“Fyn, come on. At least let the kid in.” He begs, and there’s an edge to his voice that Leto didn’t know he could have. “She has nothing to do with this.”
The door clicks open again, and Leto actually gets a good look at them this time. They lean against the doorframe, brown arms crossed over their chest. Their worn fingerless gloves curl around their fisted hands, which show signs of mild burn scars. Their braided mohawk falls in front of their face slightly, which is the only reprieve Malcolm gets from their fierce glare.
They have ten visible piercings in total. A pair of snake bites that look like bats, their ouroboros nose ring, three hoop piercings in each of their upper ears, and one earring in their right ear that looks like a spider hanging down on silk. Their vest and jeans are covered in various patches of all shapes and sizes, and there’s the hint of tattoos covering various scars on their chest that the vest barely covers.
They’re the coolest person Leto’s ever met in her whole life, and they look like they want to kill Malcolm where he stands. Their dark brown eyes move away from Malcolm to stare right at her. Their expression softens, and they sigh
“You can come in.” They move to the side to let Leto in. Their glare returns as they see Malcolm start to turn away. “Both of you.”
Her mentor’s jaw clenches, but he turns and walks ahead of her into the apartment. As Leto follows him in, Fyn gives her a small, gentle smile, and closes the door.
The apartment is small, and tidy. There’s no furniture outside of the table and couch, although there are few bookshelves that hold an eclectic collection of items. There’s a few succulent plants, some handmade figurines, and a few pictures and pieces of art put into cheap frames scattered amongst various trinkets. A couple frames are put face down, and she notices a thin layer of dust on top of them as she sits down on the couch next to Malcolm.
Fyn drags the chair at the table in front of the pair, and sits down in it. “So.” They cross their arms and lean back in the chair. Their dark eyes are staring right at Malcolm, who is refusing to look at their face. “What do I owe the pleasure?”
Leto looks at the man sitting next to her. His hands are in the top most pockets of his pants, and his eyes are staring at some blank spot on the wooden floor. Fyn shifts to lean forwards, elbows on their legs. They turn their attention to her.
“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Fyn.” They smile at her gently, and Leto feels some of the tension rise away from her shoulders.
“Leto.” She returns the introduction with a nod. She glances at the shelves. “I, uh, like the plants.”
Fyn’s smile reaches their eyes. “Thanks. I’m sometimes out of the city a few days at a time, so it’s easier to have something that doesn’t need to be watered as often.” The reach to the side and pick up a small round cactus. “And some of them make great improvised weapons.”
Leto looks at the door, which has two different deadbolt locks and a chain in addition to the key lock. “You didn’t lock up after us.”
“That’s because he’s here.” Fyn nods to Malcolm, who still hasn’t looked at them. “Y’know, Mal, a little heads up would’ve been nice.”
He shifts a little bit. “I didn’t know where you were until a little bit ago, and I didn’t know how long it’d be before I had another free evening.”
They hum dismissively. “Yeah, I know. I had to put my address in the incident report, and the big old HA would never let you talk to me after-”
“I know, that’s why I’m here now. Shit, Fyn, I’m trying.” Malcolm interrupts them, and finally meets their gaze. “Can’t you see that?”
Malcolm has never looked or sounded more desperate in his life. Leto doesn’t think she should be watching this, hearing this, experiencing this complete deconstruction of a person who’s been nothing but distant and put together. Fyn hasn’t even done anything, not from what she’s seen in the few minutes she’s been here.
“I can’t, Malcolm. You look like shit, you brought a fucking child here with no explanation, you’ve completely retracted from not only me but everyone else over the last who knows how many years. Mal, why’d you bring a kid into this?!” Their voice slowly starts to get louder as they go on, and they gesture wildly at Leto. “She has nothing to do with our bullshit, much less yours, so why are you getting her involved?”
Malcolm looks at Leto, then back at Fyn. “She’s going to get involved no matter what. She’s my mentee.”
Fyn scoffs, and leans back into the chair. “What a great job you’re doing at it.”
Malcolm’s fists clench, then unclench, and he releases a loud sigh. “Fyn, look, be as mad at me as you want, but I think Leto would benefit from having someone like you in her life.”
Leto whips her head to look at him with as much visible confusion as she can muster. “What? What does that mean?”
“I’ve seen where you live, and I know how much your mom works. Fyn is separate from all of that.” He looks at them. “And they’re also one of the most hard working, kind people I know.”
“You don’t know me.” Fyn argues. “You haven’t known me since we were 19.”
That starts another argument between Fyn and Malcolm, one which both of them refuse to back down, but Leto isn’t paying attention. She feels sick, and faint, and she wants everyone to shut up, and then she passes out.
First Chapter
Give me a Ko-Fi!